From checking and savings accounts to learning the importance of maintaining records and balancing a bank account, prepare your learners to become financially independent and savvy adults, and explore all the intricacies of owning a bank...

Before loaning a friend money, what factors would you consider and why would you lend it? Your young economists will face questions like these in a lesson on banking, profit, risk, and reward, which includes the reading of the book...

Discover what criteria creditors use for making loans (the 3 Cs of Credit), and impress upon your young adults the rights and responsibilities related to using credit. Pupils role play as individuals seeking or providing credit, as...

Full truth, or an exaggeration? How can you tell when a storyteller is exaggerating a story? Readers analyze a story told by Hortensia, and identify the exaggerative language she uses. Then, learners write their own narrative story using...

Fifth and sixth graders are introduced to the primary landforms of Illinois and discover how they were created. Landform cards are made for each pupil. They use the twenty-questions format until they have identified each one. Then,...

How have the women's share of the labor force and chosen occupations evolved in the United States over the last century? Using census reports, graphs detailing the gender makeup of the labor force, and analysis of the careers of...

Inflate your knowledge, not the economy! Pupils learn more about inflation with detailed worksheets and exciting activities such as role play, an interactive PowerPoint presentation, and a project in which they design...

What would your class members say to the opportunity to take two years off of school between grades 10 and 11? Examine the economic concepts of costs, benefits, and unintended consequences with this unique and engaging approach.

Why are US dollars no longer backed by gold and silver? What is our medium of exchange, and what would it be like to live in a barter economy? Learners consider these questions, as well as learn about the major historical events in the...

What do Whoosh and Jet Stream have in common? They are both characters in a fantastic game designed to help young scholars identify various positive and negative spending behaviors. Through an engaging activity, worksheets, and...

Young scientists transform themselves into rivers, oceans, clouds, and drops of water in order to explore the water cycle. After assigning and explaining to students their different roles in the activity, the teacher reads aloud a...

Why can't we have everything we want? Youngsters are introduced to the concept of scarcity through a game of musical chairs and by discussing what it takes to satisfy our wants.

This is an incredible resource for teaching your young economists about the loanable funds market and the concept of crowding out. It includes a hands-on, physical activity that serves as a metaphor to help explain the economic...

By studying Benjamin Franklin's work as a printer, your class will have a fantastic opportunity to learn about the economic concepts of entrepreneurship, human capital, and investment. 

Making decisions can be very difficult. Show your class one way to evaluate choices with this lesson, which is inspired by the book Glo Goes Shopping. Learners practicing using a decision-making grid with the content of the story and a...

How did South African apartheid affect the ability of people of color to increase their human capital? Here is a rich lesson plan in which learners come to understand the relationship between investment in human capital and income, while...

What types of government programs are designed to improve economic inequity in the United States? Introduce your learners to government programs, such as low-income housing, Social Security, and Medicaid, how they work to improve...

Young learners develop a deeper understanding of target vocabulary. In pairs, pupils independently complete a series of word clue cards, asking them to find information about key terms, including their definitions, synonyms, antonyms,...

A superb interdisciplinary approach highlights this lesson which incorporates space science knowledge and narrative skills. After reading The Magic School Bus, two excellent poems, and watching a video, all about our solar system, young...

Looking to introduce some text-based questions into your ELA lessons? Practice the kinds of skills the Common Core demands with the seven text-based questions and the essay prompt provided here. Designed to be a three-day lesson, day one...

Sharpen your pencil and grab a ruler, it's time to draw some quadrilaterals! Given the definition of a parallelogram, rectangle, and rhombus, learners draw examples and nonexamples of each figure. The three definitions are...

While it may not be possible to take an entire class to Egypt and explore the ancient wonders, it is possible to engage your young historians in activities that ask them to research these and other antiquities and place them on their...